Artemas, PA

We checked out of our little nest in Pittsburgh by 9am and started the drive to visit Aunt Joan in Artemas, PA. We brought our little toll thingy, which you add money to, put on the windshield of the car and it will deduct tolls as you go through toll roads. These days, they also charge the tolls by your license plates, so even if it doesn’t register the little doohickey, the charges (and fees) will then be charged to the rental vehicle, and we’d have to pay those when we turn in the rental car. It hasn’t been too bad, and one benefit of the toll roads is that they are easier and flatter to drive than the scary highway roads that are super steep, narrow, lots of blind passes, more animals like deer running in the roads, and where there often is no signal to see your GPS! So I’m happy to pay for good roads.

We made it to Artemas by 12:30 or so, dropped our stuff off in our cute little cabin, then went to Joan’s that’s about 3 minutes away and just one direct road. She has the funniest, cutest little dog who looks like a wee basketball on tiny legs! His name is Buddy and follows her around everywhere. She said he doesn’t like to go outside without her because he’s scared of a neighborhood cat that comes by to hiss at him. She had a hummingbird feeder and a tiny swing for them which they loved! There were a bunch of hummingbirds flying around, but I never could get a photo because they are so fast! They looked so cute preening on the tiny swing!

Joan made us some grilled ham and cheese sandwiches and we caught up a bit, then she called her brother Ronny (John’s uncle) to make arrangements to meet him and his wife, Jackie, at a restaurant in Hancock. We met them and had a nice early dinner and talked about genealogy with Jackie, who has done loads of research on Ronny’s family back to the 1500’s! We are very interested to see those results. We grabbed all about the family, and found out that Jan (John’s mom) and Joan (her twin sister) were married on the same day and were each other’s witnesses! We never knew. It was interesting to hear Ronny’s perspective since he is 7 years younger than them, and the difficulty he faced in having to move around so much. Their family had a lot of hardships, and still does, following their kids and now grandkids, so it makes me grateful for what we have, the stability we had, and for making positive changes in my life before the road became too set in stone. Being here also helps to understand why city and rural living and perspectives are so vastly different. We weren’t able to see Ashley or Trinity, Joan’s granddaughters, so we will have to plan another visit out to see them. Ashley is pregnant, so we will hopefully be able to come back out to meet the baby. 

After our meal the Jimmy Joy’s Log Cabin Inn, we brought Joan to our little cabin at the Road Kill Cafe and Cabins, chatted for a bit, then ran her home. We came back and vegged out for the rest of the night. There is not a lot to do out here, so we strolled up and down the road a bit, but we’re pretty glad to just chill on the comfy beds in the A/C. John slept a full 8 hours! I woke around 3am and was up for about 1.5 hours before I finally fell back to sleep for a bit. We woke up to see a whole herd of deer nibbling on the grass near the woods out back! We will be having lunch with Joan at the Road Kill Cafe, then heading off to Gettysburg. I’ll be relieved to get somewhere with a better signal for peace of mind! 

Pittsburgh Day 2

We had a wonderful day yesterday, and great weather! John started us off with a nice hearty breakfast and we enjoyed our coffee out on the little outdoor landing that overlooks a cute yard. We set out on the bus to downtown, starting our walk along Point Park, across one of the many bridges here to take the two furniculars they have here. So we went up the Duquesne Incline (which is pronounced Du-Caine), and took a bunch of cool photos at the top of the sweeping views of Pittsburgh. 

Then we walked the hills for about a mile to the other funicular,  the Mononcahela Incline to take it down again. We hiked across the river along a different bridge, this one had loads of inspiring and thought-provoking and supportive graffiti for anyone considering suicide, and I took some photos because it’s been sort of my thing these days to photograph graffiti. 

We then went to the Science Museum where we got to see a really cool Vikings exhibit, a planetarium show, an awesome meticulously maintained electric train village, toured a submarine, and got to take selfies with a bunch of our favorite TV star robots: C3-PO, R2-D2, Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo! A very exciting day! And we wore masks indoors with all the germy people and kids!

Then we met up with my friend Molly and two of her kids at a little pub to have lunch and catch up. It was getting pretty hot out and the rest and fuel up in the a/c. Her one very shy and stressed kid seemed to lighten up and start laughing with us as I regaled them with my many hilarious toilet tales of woe! 

Then we meandered over to the PNC baseball stadium and waited to be able to get into the stadium to eat and walk the stadium before the Pittsburgh Pirates vs Atlanta game started. It is a super cool stadium! We had a really lovely evening watching the sun set over the gorgeous view of the riverfront and cityscape and the game. We treated ourselves to a Lyft ride home because I have a pretty gnarly blister on my pinky toe, and we were happy to collapse into our comfy king bed in our loft apartment. A wonderful, perfect day!

Pittsburgh!

Our flight to Pittsburgh was super quick, only 1.5 hours, but all the airport stuff and waiting took way more time than the flight itself, and a delay on the tarmac, but once landed we were off to fetch our rental car and driving into the city! The driving was blessedly tame, but finding a parking spot on these skinny streets which all look like one-ways was quite the challenge! They have an interesting parking permitting system here that requires you to register your car, license plates and dates of stay, but then all street parking is free. So we pulled off into a Rite Aid parking lot to take care of all that and to call my Mama and let her know we got in ok. We contacted the AirBnB buy to see if we could check in early (the normal check in time is 4pm!) and then walked around the neighborhood for a bit to wait and hear back. Thankfully we barely have any baggage and having the car we were able to just lock our stuff in the trunk.  Finally around 2pm we could check in and relax a bit. We had barely eaten anything and had been up since 3am so it was nice to just have the evening to grab some groceries and hang out in the a/c of our very cute and comfy digs!

We slept really well, although I got many times throughout the night, but still feel well-rested. We are in Pittsburg for two nights in a bit of a whirlwind stay to catch a baseball game and meet up for lunch with my friend Molly and her kids, who just moved here at the end of June. So we are heading out shortly to take the bus downtown and see some sites. We are planning to check out the Duquesne Incline, Point State Park, Carnegie Science Center and PNC Park. I’ll try to post photos later today!

Winona, Wabasha, LaCrosse

 We did so much hiking on this trip, despite such horrible heat! On this trip we’ve hiked in Great River Bluffs State Park, John A. Latch State Park, Trempealeau Wildlife Refuge, Frontenac State Park as well as the local river walk in Winona, and a bit around downtown Wabasha.

Yesterday on our final day, I made us an omelette, and we enjoyed a leisurely start to the day. We were packed up early and checked out of the Airbnb by 9am, and decided to break up the drive home with some last minute hiking. We first checked out this little trail right across the river from where we stayed, called the Agaming Trail, and this little funky shanty river village right on the waters, kind of reminiscent of the fishing village homes along the fjords in Norway. You can watch the most adorable mother & baby snapping turtles swimming together in the video! So cute!

 

Here’s some photos from Trempeauleau hike: 

Here’s some photos of Wabasha, a few random shots of LaCrosse and the rest of our journey:

It was a very relaxing trip, so good to get away from the normal schedule for a while and you always feel a million miles away from normal worries when traveling, but we were so grateful to return to our wonderful home, and our very comfortable bed! And blessed be central air! 

The Great River Shakespeare Festival & Rachel’s 51st Birthday

We try to attend the Great River Shakespeare Festival every year, and this year we came to see “As You Like It”. It was fabulously done with a great troupe of actors and I loved the costumes. There are so many characters in this play, so it can be hard to follow, but this time, I followed it really well and that was partially due to the intimacy of the audience and players, which they intentionally created by placing all the seating right on the stage surrounding the actors. Also partially due to their brilliant idea of introducing all the characters one by one with a fun little start to the play where each character comes forth saying who they are, in what relation to the other characters, and when the same actor plays multiple characters in different costumes (as is typical in Shakespeare plays) they came forth in each costume.

It was neat, and this troupe usually has such a beautifully unique way of presenting the plays each year. I really appreciate all the creativity that they put into this production. Every year, it is really something special to see! I also really appreciate the diversity of the cast, which may be surprising to know that way down in rural Minnesota, there is a fabulously skilled and diverse cast of people performing these ancient plays, and you can tell their passion for theatre. 

So the play was last night, and it was the perfect topper for my birthday! The play was followed by an ice cream social, so we got free ice cream, and John and I strolled around the gorgeous gardens, watched the fireflies igniting the night, and the moon rising over the sweet WSU campus. I loved that they had a new feature in the garden this year, an Anishnaabe medicine circle that I could identify immediately by the equal armed stone cross with juniper (or cedar?), tobacco, sage and sweet grass planted in each direction. They had a nice plaque describing the intent and ceremony of its placement, and I offered it my hair and blessings. I wish I’d had more privacy, or I would have done my own prayer songs to the plants and stones, but it’s enough to at least whisper blessings and offer breath and hair, which are pieces of the self that carry one’s energetic signature. 

At the start of our day, we had a wonderful hike in one of our favorite state parks, Great River Bluffs. We did the King’s Bluff trail, which led to a gorgeous view of the Queen’s Bluff, its consort, and the valley’s and river below. I was struck immediately at the wondrous pair, the King and Queen, or as I’d rather say it, the Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine, these mountain bluffs standing together with their smaller “children” hills surrounding them. I made prayers with smoke and song up there and made many gorgeous photos, such a view and such lovely blooming flowers along the countryside! We then took the North and South lookout trails which were much shorter, but offer more stunning views. At the South, there is a massive part of the stone bluff poking out that you can shimmy out onto, so I made special prayers to it. I never, ever tire of the wonder of this part of Minnesota. It is my favorite part of our state that I’ve seen so far. I still think about moving down here. 

We then rested in the shade and lunched on some delicious snackies, then headed for the International Owl Center in Houston to visit the ambassador owls, hear a presentation and cool off in the air conditioning. We met Ruby: a Great Horned,  Bea: a Burrowing owl, JR: an Eastern Screech owl, and Piper: an American Barn owl. They were all so beautiful! I’ve never seen a burrowing owl and was astonished at how tiny she was! Same with the Eastern Screech! Although I’ve seen a mating pair of Eastern Screech owls that nest near my workplace, it’s really something to see them up close and marvel at how tiny they are! You can then appreciate that it’s cats who are a great threat to them, they’re just minuscule little things! When you see the Great Horned and Barn owls, which are much larger, you can see why these are the threat to cats!

This is JR, the Eastern Screech owl. I couldn’t get much closer and they had rules about getting too close or disruptive to the birds. He was a bit jittery and making some interesting noises.

This is Piper the Barn owl.

This is Ruby. They also have a live web cam on another Great Horned owl called Iris. 

This is Bea, and the one the naturalist took out to show us up close. She was amazingly tiny!

We then headed back to the Airbnb for a shower and R&R, then I decided I didn’t want anything fancy for dinner, and we just went to a local taco place for dinner, El Patron, which is kind of like a Chi-Chi’s. We had a fun time there before the show. 

Here’s some photos of Levee Park in Winona.

Since I’ve missed blogging our previous days, I’ll detail a bit of what else we’ve done with our time off so far. We started this whole mini-vacation on Wednesday with a riverboat cruise on the Mississippi in St. Paul. The air quality was really bad that day, but we wanted to do something fun and not too strenuous. We saw tons of eagles and a heron, and the views from the river are lovely. I got some good photos, despite the wildfire smoke obscuring everything. We then went to Como Park to have a picnic lunch of Nelson’s Deli sandwiches and walked around the park, getting loads of glorious flower photos! 

As we left Minneapolis on Thursday for our drive to Winona, we decided to try to climb the stairs at John Latch State Park, but I made it only about 150 of the 550 stairs that seem to ascend straight up into the abyss before deciding that I’d not likely be able to make it and we turned around. Poor John’s Achille’s heel, which has been inflamed for some time, got much worse after that, so that was obviously a poor choice :( Poo! I’ve been massaging it with pain cream, and he’s been icing it and took some Advil yesterday, but I notice this morning he’s still limping quite a bit. We plan on taking it easy today with a movie and a baseball game in LaCrosse, WI. 

Our trip wraps tomorrow morning, so we may grab some legendary Bloedow doughnuts on the way out of town, and we intend on stopping off at our favorite King’s Bar in Meisville for some of the yummiest hamburgers for lunch!